Pro-N Korea group may lose its Japan 'embassy'

TOKYO, June 18 (Reuters) A pro-Pyongyang group of ethnic Koreans in Japan was ordered to pay over 500 million dollars to government debt collectors today, a court ruling that could result in the seizure of its headquarters, North Korea's de facto embassy in Japan.

The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon), had said the suit, filed by the Resolution and Collection Corp (RCC), was intended to deprive the group of its headquarters and force it to dissolve.

About 600,000 ethnic Koreans live in Japan, of whom some 80,000 are pro-North, and Chongryon functions as their embassy because Japan and North Korea have no diplomatic ties.

In a ruling that ordered Chongryon to pay 62.7 billion yen (507.7 million dollars) and allowing the debt collectors to seize its headquarters in lieu of payment, the Tokyo District Court said the suit was not politically motivated.

Kyodo news agency said the RCC was expected to start procedures to impound the group's headquarters, a 10-story building occupying 2,400 square metres (26,000 sq ft) of land in central Tokyo.

The RCC took over the 62.7 billion yen in nonperforming loans from now-defunct credit unions closely associated with Chongryon, and argued they were effectively for Chongryon.

In an apparent bid to avoid its headquarters from being seized, Chongryon had sold the property to a former head of Japan's intelligence service in May, but the deal collapsed after prosecutors began investigating it.

Chongryon has come under government scrutiny and some of its members have been harassed by Japanese right-wingers especially after Pyongyang admitted in 2002 that it had abducted 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s to help train spies.

The group's membership has also fallen steadily over the years, especially after North Korea test-fired a medium-range ballistic missile that passed over Japan in 1998.

Many of the ethnic Koreans in Japan are descendents of the 2 million Koreans brought to Japan as forced labour during Tokyo's 1910-1945 colonisation of the peninsula.

Apart from the pro-North residents, about 220,000 support the South and the rest back neither country, according to Korea experts.

Japan granted Koreans Japanese nationality during its colonial rule but stripped them of that status in 1952.

Most Koreans in Japan were born and raised in Japan, speak fluent Japanese and marry Japanese nationals.

($1=123.50 Yen) REUTERS JK KN1433